Stress as a source of injury among a group of professional ballet dancers

Description:

Sport and dance injuries have increased despite improvements in coaching techniques and medical
care. Other factors, including psychological ones, were therefore thought to play a role in injury
vulnerability. Most of the attempts to explain how psychological variables can affect an athlete's
predisposition to injury have been based on anxiety or stress concepts. In this survey type study
an interactive approach to stress has been adopted with the goal of finding a relationship between
stress and injury in a group of professional ballet dancers. No simple direct relationship was
found. Multiple regression analysis was performed and a more complicated relationship between
stress indicators and injury was found. When an attempt was made to investigate the significant
interaction, no significant correlations were found. However, the correlations were found to be
large and negative. This could indicate that if the sample size had been larger significant
correlations may have been found.